By GHK Lall-The things that pass muster in this country are beyond reason, belief. First, at the high altitude of 35,000 feet. Then they crash land and blowup a whole country. Who would have thought that a Lamborghini would lead to all this mess and stress in Guyana! Perhaps, I should say PPP Guyana, and the Guyana gift center (GRA). I brought in a rusty old Nissan Pathfinder, and the value barely scratched a couple of quid, and there were people at the GRA peeping and seeking, sniffing and circling, checking their notebooks and settling for fair value. They said I still owed. I did, and all that ends well ends well.
A Pathfinder is nothing, and things were checked through and through. I urged it. So, it baffles that a fabulous Lamborghini ends up being valued at US$75,000, and that was settled. On the books. And, off of them, too, I dare to say. It’s a regular feature of operations at the Guyana gift center. The one place in Georgetown where cooperation and consensus sparkle with untiring energies.
What the PPP and PNC can’t achieve, the GRA shows both of them how to get done. What the PNC and AFC are deadlocked over, the GRA makes mincemeat of day after day. Even if a citizen represents that a Lamborghini is valued at all of US$75K, then somebody at the GRA has to say, no way, Jose. Not even a Range Rover. Or a decent Yankee Cadillac. I would like a deal like that, and a free pass of that kind. Then again, not I, sire; ah don’t like looking over shoulder. Nor having people at the top of the PPP holding one over me.
Okay, so the chief commissioner is up there in his 10th floor penthouse office. But what of the chief duty-free man, was he on leave? How about the internal auditors, did they run out of red flags, having used up all their cloth to march to Freedom House’s colors? And what about the GRA’s external auditors, who the big ones say are among the best? It seems that when a Lamborghini that carried a freight of US$695,000 that they were all on holiday, took a much-needed nap, or just engaged in the usual slackness. No! I will not despoil this writing by using any colorful language.
I must congratulate the citizen for having the nerve of an armadillo and the guts of a turtle. No wonder some of them take a nap in the middle of the highway. It’s a rather nifty move, that one of subbing US$75,000 in lieu of US$695,000. Before AYSCUDA, piranhas and barracudas were in charge. And nobody had a problem, with any discount, haircut, or a cut from extraordinary cloth. Congrats to the GRA. Congrats to the citizen for showing Guyanese how these things are done. One more: a big hand for the PPP Government for keeping this one under a radar that even Nicolas Maduro couldn’t have detected.
Now for the bad vibes that leave a bad taste in everybody’s mouth. Dr. Terrence Campbell decided to speak publicly about oil management, and his tax business is public business within days. A Lamborghini sailed from wherever (Italy, Miami), landed here, and it took years before the GRA came to its senses.
Rather ominously, the GRA has its special season when it develops efficiency and the energy to go after people. A certain kind of people. Note the string connecting Dr. Campbell and the Lamborghini importer. Politics. When politics raises its head in Guyana, then belated discoveries are made. Could it be that this Lamborghini affair is bigger than the poor GRA shrunk to the size of a pawn? One that was and is made to talk and bark, like a puppet.
Look, I may be slower than most, but there is difficulty grasping how a Lamborghini valued at US$695 big ones, could be valued at US$75,000 and still sail through smoothly to the cashier and off the wharf. I offer this from personal archives. My Pathfinder was entitled to a 90% duty-free concession due to my re-migrant status, which I got, after a thorough valuation diagnostic. Yet, there was the GRA in the matter of the Lamborghini accepting a valuation reduced by 89.21%.
What kind of geniuses were involved in this matter? I am crying foul; a victim of bureaucratic miscalculation, even discrimination. I must remember to check with Guyana’s chief lawman, Anil, to determine if the statute of limitations has expired, preventing me from filing a claim. I hope that all Guyanese sympathize with my struggles. The battle is to see this newest development concerning valuation as all of a tax collection issue, and not as a political hatchet job. Perhaps, the moneyman could help, the budget marathon man.
To close, I came up with a new saying to sum up all of this up neatly. When something smells, some dog dropped dead somewhere. But when something really stinks, it inevitably leads to political people. I know about sub judice, but what goes on here smacks of what is jaundiced. Political jaundice; plus political terrorism.
